prospector,
I appreciate your detailed response to AINS.
Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
The answer to your first question depends entirely on how they navigated down there in the first place without INS (and given that the trips relied on INS to some extent to get them in the ballpark because the previous onboard navaids were not accurate enough it makes it extremely hypothetical as a situation). The only way I could see them doing it would be if they had a fully-qualified and dedicated navigator onboard, which would place the onus on the crew in any case.
What I'm hearing you say is, the crew was for all intents and purposes relying, by the back door route, on AINS. Take away AINS and you have a crew that would not have been confident that a faint patch of darkness was the west coast of Ross Island. Is that a fair statement?